iPhone battery life compared to Androids

macrumors 68020

A couple of coworkers complained about their lack of battery life with their Androids.
One had a Galaxy S2 that he always has to plug in.
Another has, I think an HTC, and purchased a number of spare batteries and saddle back battery packs so he can swap around all day and put in chargers.

I have a plain 4, and can go 2 days to normal usage (3G is off all the time).

I mentioned to them about turning off 3G, but neither did not know if they could turn off 3G on Android.

Of course the 4S is more power intensive, but how bad compared to others?

macrumors 65816

macrumors 68020

I can get 2 days out of my G2 pretty easily, and I've never really thought about turning off the 3G mode. lol funny thought there!

The battery life depends on a lot of things: LTE & WiMax modems eat up battery, large screens eat up battery, and HTC Sense is horrible about eating up battery. That, and while I can get 2 days out of my phone I usually get 1 - if I leave GPS navigation open and play internet radio at the same time I'd probably only get 4-5 hours xD GPS is particularly nasty on my battery!

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 68000

Battery size, cpu power optimization, screen size, apps and widgets utilizing the cpu/gpu, modem type and use, and so on, all factor in to battery life. Some phones purposely come with cheap batteries (usually the cheap Android BOGO phones) and won't last but a few hours. Apple tries its best to optimize battery life, as I'm sure Samesung, LG, HTC and the rest do for their top of the line phones. These days I don't envy the engineers and coders that have to squeeze every drop of juice out of their OS, UI and battery for a specific phone.

macrumors 68030

I have an SGS2 Skyrocket and leave LTE and WiFi on all the time.
I can get through an entire day of my normal use and still have approx. 20% battery left when I go to sleep.

The newer LTE radios and SOC setups are not as power hungry as the earlier versions.
Plus the power management software has improved greatly.
The phone will idle the CPU at 385Mhz or deep sleep mode between screen usage.

macrumors 68030

When I had my SGS2 I would get 1 day stand by battery and 5 hours usage. (Wifi browsing some texting no music). With 4S I get 7-8 hours usage and 1 day stand by with the same usage as my SGS2.

Click to expand...

Which SGS2?
There are 5 versions just in the US.
Hell, AT&T carries 3 of them. The SGS2, Skyrocket and Captivate.
Each uses a different SOC, so their power usage will vary.

The Skyrocket (SGH-I727) and the T-Mobile version (SGH-T989) are the same phone. They both use the same pentaband radio (MSM8260). You can flash the T-Mobile radio onto an AT&T Skyrocket and is will work on T-Mobile's AWS 3G band.
Just like you can flash the Skyrocket's radio onto the T989 and it will active the LTE frequencies on the MSM8260.

macrumors 68000

Which SGS2?
There are 5 versions just in the US.
Hell, AT&T carries 3 of them. The SGS2, Skyrocket and Captivate.
Each uses a different SOC, so their power usage will vary.

The Skyrocket (SGH-I727) and the T-Mobile version (SGH-T989) are the same phone. They both use the same pentaband radio (MSM8260). You can flash the T-Mobile radio onto an AT&T Skyrocket and is will work on T-Mobile's AWS 3G band.
Just like you can flash the Skyrocket's radio onto the T989 and it will active the LTE frequencies on the MSM8260.

Click to expand...

As you can see in my location, I'm not in the US. So I couldn't care less what version it is.

I suppose it's the "international version". Anyway, I've had it before the SGS2 was even announced for US.

macrumors newbie

macrumors 6502

A couple of coworkers complained about their lack of battery life with their Androids.
One had a Galaxy S2 that he always has to plug in.
Another has, I think an HTC, and purchased a number of spare batteries and saddle back battery packs so he can swap around all day and put in chargers.

I have a plain 4, and can go 2 days to normal usage (3G is off all the time).

I mentioned to them about turning off 3G, but neither did not know if they could turn off 3G on Android.

Of course the 4S is more power intensive, but how bad compared to others?

Click to expand...

Turning off 3G is really not a feasible idea. U buy such a hi tech gadget only to not utilise it at its fullest..

Even keeping 3G on will get u a day of usage.. That's not bad as long as it gets u day..

macrumors 601

Without any special settings, just daily use with everything on, etc - I unplug at around 6 AM, and plug it in at around 9 PM (So 15 hours) with about 20% left. That's using the phone, playing games, using 3G etc.

macrumors 65816

I have an iphone 4 and lose about 40% battery overnight doing nothing. 3G is on, wifi is off, bluetooth is off, and email checking is off. I hardly get half a day with my iphone before it dies and I only use it for about 10 minutes checking email or websites before it dies. However, I can talk 4-5 hours on the phone over 3G before it dies.

macrumors 65816

With Android a lot depends on how it's setup, lot of people have updates up the wazoo and stuff running in the background or checking 24/7 etc. Plus cell reception can cause bad drain depending on location and carrier. And then some have different versions, like my GS2 is only 4.3" and has the efficient Exyno's cpu. I haven't rooted or rom'd mine yet but going too, battery life is even more awesome with a custom Rom and no bloatware.

All our phones are on at&t with excellent reception in South FL and for battery life with our use I would rank them as:
4 > i777 GS2 > 3GS and 4S about a tie. My primary is the i777 and gf's is the 4S for work.

Then you can easily find someone complaining about how terrible theirs is. It looks like the latest version of ics may help. I'd like to get a gnex just to see if I could figure out the problem, I'm a geek like that.

......

Btw there are more threads about android devices on macrumors then there are on androidcentral lol

macrumors G4

Here is what I have found. iPhone 4 seems to have roughly the the same to slight better battery life for the same usage. If the screen is on a lot and cell data is being used heavily it will drain the battery in around the same time span. A friend of mine has a 4S and I have an Atrix 4G (both on AT&T). Often time he is limiting along at the end of his battery life in the evening but he is on the phone all the time. Our batteries seem to drain at around the same pace. It is the screen and cell data that toast these batteries. Comparing two people usage is not exactly fair as people have very diferent usage patterns.

I will say the battery life on my phone jumped a lot once I got a tablet as my phone spent more time idle. It went from 12 hours to well over 30 hours but that was due to greatly reduce time of not using the screen.

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